Basin

c. 3000 B.C.

The form of this thin-walled, hand-built basin follows a Pan-po-type shape of the Yang shao culture that was already in use nearly a thousand years before this vessel was made. The wide rounded bowl has a fairly small flat base and an everted rim with a broad, rounded rim flange. Typical of much Ma-chia-yao ware, it is made of yellowish-brown earthenware, extensively painted in overall concentric and spiral patterns. It is exquisitely burnished imparting a rich luster to its interior surface.

thinly potted circular form with steeply rounded sides resting on flat rimless foot; painted black in linear design of concentric rings encircling round "eye" in center with two bands of arcs around the well above and below a central divider of three hori